


Keeping Secrets

by hubblegleeflower



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Bondage, F/F, Femlock, Femslash, Trust Issues, very very light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 07:50:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10329665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubblegleeflower/pseuds/hubblegleeflower
Summary: Hiding. John did try, of course she did. She tried to hide, and tried to hide the fact that she was hiding. She thinks, now, that she must have known it wouldn’t work, on some level. Once she and Sherlock had crossed that line—finally—discovery was hardly even a risk. It was a certainty. But she tried anyway.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flawedamythyst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/gifts).



> Completed in 24 hours for the Come At Once challenge, round 7. For a prompt from flawedamythist: "Keeping Secrets", though I admit I used some ideas and drabbles that I already had written. Because porn deadlines are very scary.

“How do you want to lie?”

John considers. On her belly, she feels safe, but she won’t be able to see, and Sherlock could only really reach her back, unless she rises to all fours, and oh _god_ , she might die of exposure if that happens. On her side...no. Her breasts—which Sherlock thinks are _full_ and _beautiful_ —will hang down, slack, one flopping onto the other, and her belly too...no. 

On her back, then? Fully exposed, which she supposes is the point of this. Unable to cover herself, unable to hide. At least her breasts will escape the worst effects of gravity that way, and she’ll be able to cross her legs…

“Stop calculating, John.”

There is no hiding from Sherlock. “On my back.”

“On you go, then. Head on the pillows.”

Sherlock has arranged the ties ahead of time. John lies down on the bed, and allows Sherlock to grasp her arms, to bring them over her head, to tie one wrist to the other, until both are secured to the bed. The hours spent on the Internet have been fruitful, apparently, because the knots are swiftly tied, neither too tight nor too loose, and hold firm when John tests them. She’s in it now. Just as well there are ropes there to keep her from backing out.

“Your safeword?” Sherlock’s voice is coolly efficient.

“Vatican cameos.” But she doesn’t want to use it. She’s asked for this. This is what she wants, and the restraints are there to stop her from sabotaging it— _again._ “Sherlock, I’m ready. I’m ready, we can start.”

“We _have_ started, John. Which means I decide how fast we go. For now, I just want you to lie there. Get used to the position. Feel out the slack, feel how you can move, and how you can’t. Are you warm enough?”

Sherlock has been running Mrs. Hudson’s old portable oil heater in here for hours. The room smells slightly of burnt dust, but the temperature is comfortable, even with John’s skin bare. “Yes.”

“Good. Then take a few minutes to get comfortable.”

_Comfortable._ As if John can feel at all comfortable like _this,_ laid out on the bed, in a well-lit room, naked. Nipples tightening despite the heat of the room. _Visible._ With Sherlock there, looking at her. Just looking. Exposed to those eyes that notice everything, with no way to hide.

***

_Hiding._ She did try, of course she did. She tried to hide, and tried to hide the fact that she was hiding. She thinks, now, that she must have known it wouldn’t work, on some level. Once she and Sherlock had crossed that line— _finally—_ discovery was hardly even a risk. It was a certainty. But she tried anyway.

It wasn’t difficult. Sherlock abandoned her reserve almost the moment their lips touched, or so it seemed to John, who had never successfully abandoned her reserve at all. Sherlock was open, and gloried in it. Accepted John’s kiss and her touch and her gaze as if she couldn’t get enough, with a courage and, and _trust_ that John could not quite fathom.

They kissed. They kissed and kissed, and John _wanted_ this. She opened her mouth and growled, growled, _growled,_ without breaking contact, nipping with lips and teeth, not biting but _consuming._ Her hands clenched where they could reach, clutched and gripped shoulders, arms, and jaw, just on the edge of no longer gentle, seized in the grip of a fierce hunger.

_This._ Suddenly just so... possible. Because Sherlock was allowing it, was accepting it, was revelling in it.

John felt that her mouth was famished, that her hands were _ravenous_. Taking Sherlock’s flesh in great, grasping fistfuls. Sherlock’s mouth opened wide under the onslaught, and her body flexed and arched into John’s gluttonous touch, and if someone tried to consume John like that, she would flee never to return, but Sherlock offered herself freely, to be devoured.

_So brave. So beautiful._

Perhaps this could work. If Sherlock was so openly placing her body under John’s touch, perhaps she wouldn’t notice...and John could _have_ this, could have it without...without risking exposure.

***

John did her best to make the deception a pleasant one. She had a lifetime of deflection and camouflage to fall back on, and she had never been more motivated. (Or inspired, really, by Sherlock’s eager responsiveness, by the way she surrendered to sensation, by her lean, long, quivering body.)

She deflected by heaping attention, and it was so, so wonderful:

Coming up behind Sherlock and wrapping her arms around her waist, naked, her own irrelevant breasts pressed firmly to Sherlock’s back. The palm of her right hand sliding over Sherlock’s ribs, crossing the smooth plane of her belly before moving upwards to cup her breast—only one breast, in _one hand_ , but she grasped the nipple between her thumb and her middle finger and _just_ pinched, barely, and _just_ rolled, and tugged, and rolled, every touch just barely there. She did not think that Sherlock even realised how her body was responding until John finally reached down with her left hand and ran a finger along the seam of Sherlock’s vulva…

….and it _slid, it slid,_ Sherlock was slippery and swollen, from two gentle fingers on her nipple, rolling, and as if that were not enough, she then spread her thighs wide and rocked so that her slick clit glided over John’s pressing fingers, glided and _squished_ , liquid, while John’s pincer grip on her nipple tugged and pinched, and now Sherlock needed her hands just to brace herself, one on the wall and one on the headboard, until she quivered and arched, and John bit the ridge of her shoulder blade, and she came with a gush and a shout, and didn’t notice anything amiss.

Or, another time, settling down on her belly between Sherlock’s spread thighs, an arm wrapped around each hip, drawing out orgasm after orgasm with her mouth, each one unique, with its own particular...tone. She kept track:

One was slow, built with lips and kisses, welling up quiet, warm, gentle and almost unregarded until it bubbled to the surface, leaving Sherlock puddled, only slightly, into the covers; one more insistent, tongue now, the flat of it pressing, not quite on, but all around Sherlock’s wakening clitoris, at the points of the compass, _press, press, press._ Then a long lick from between the inner lips to the very tip, long and wide, firm (not ticklish), and another, and another, Sherlock’s hips rising with every pass, so that when John made her lips more solid now and closed them around Sherlock’s clit and _sucked_ , not too hard, Sherlock’s orgasm swelled and pulsed, and she writhed up into John’s mouth.

(“John,” she said weakly, and her voice sounded wet.

“Shh. Not done yet.”)

One more pointed now, on a clitoris slick and swollen and _ready_ , now, for the delicate slip of tongue tip, slip and tingle, brush and buzz, and John fancied she could _see_ the climax vibrating out from the epicenter, radiating into Sherlock’s thighs and belly into a blossoming climax of head thrown back and thighs pressed ever wider; then one that followed swiftly, almost of its own accord, with little more encouragement from John, thrumming itself out of a slick, full clit and a body straining against its own bounds to open _wider_ , to offer _more,_ to rise and spread and _unfurl_ , the better to surrender itself to John, who pulled back only at the last to whisper _oh, you beauty, yes,_ because Sherlock was otherworldly like this, and Sherlock shuddered and shuddered and came.

(“John.” Weakly, reaching.

“Still not done.”)

A final one, back to kisses and sips, wet passes of wide lips, warm nuzzles and hot breaths, John’s face burrowing deep, two fingers curling, seeking, until Sherlock’s whole body was flung wide and smeared flush with the mattress. 

She stirred faintly, and tried to speak, but John said, “Shhh, darling,” and smoothed her hair, and tucked the duvet up around her shoulders, and when she slid into bed behind her some minutes later, Sherlock barely moved. _Good._

***

Always she managed to avoid Sherlock’s, to sidle away, to shift a little further, and then busy herself with Sherlock’s pleasure so it wasn’t obvious that she was avoiding her touch. Once, when she was sleepy afterwards, Sherlock reached for her and she noticed too late and it was obvious when she _shied away_ from Sherlock’s touch that that’s what she was doing...but even then she only smiled sheepishly and made the excuse that she was pre-menstrual and her breasts were sensitive, and Sherlock was relaxed enough not to question it, even though John had had her period the week before. 

***

So it was only a matter of time, and sure enough, one evening after Mrs. Hudson had been up to drop off some biscuits and say good night, Sherlock confronted John in the sitting room.

“I thought we were through with keeping secrets.”

And still John tried, John _tried,_ tried to pretend there was nothing, or that it was no big deal, or that she was satisfied, really, with the way things are, and Sherlock—so pliant and accommodating in bed—was relentless and laser-focused and would not allow John to steer the conversation by even one degree. Getting progressively more distraught as the talk went on.

Finally: “But _why,_ John? You’re sitting there, missing the point, _on purpose_ , and I don’t understand _why._ I want you, John. You seem, you seem to want me too. You have licked up the length of my entire body and wrapped yourself around me from every angle. You’ve buried your face—” and her lips twisted but she didn’t stop. “—your whole face in me, and sucked and lapped...John, your fingers, and your tongue...and I let you, I let you, I always let you, because I trust you—”

“Oh, god, Sherlock, I do, I do trust you, I could never, please don’t think—”

“Then _tell me_ , because right now every time we’re together all I want is to fill my hands with you, gather up your breasts. I want to, to kiss and taste, to drink in your smell, god. Like you have with me, and bury my face in you, wet and warm, and lick paths up your body, and touch, and if you don’t want me to, that’s, that’s...not exactly fine but I can, I can, but I need you to tell me _why_.”

A panting, agitated Sherlock, who wasn’t fooled, who knew that John was hiding, and thought John didn’t trust her...it was not to be borne.

_“I don’t know why.”_ John did not quite shout at Sherlock, but it was a near thing. “I stop you, every time. I don’t want to stop you. I want to let you touch me, but I can’t...I can’t stop myself from stopping you. I wish I somehow wasn’t _able_ to stop you.” The truth of that statement halted her in her tracks so it was a moment before she finished. “I wish I could let you.”

The silence stretched then, and after several seconds John forced herself to look up at Sherlock, who was frozen where she stood, there in front of the sofa, her eyes wide, her mouth agape, clearly in the grip of some strong...idea.

And John asked what it was, because it was Sherlock and she could never not ask.

***

Sherlock’s _idea_ is wrapped around John’s wrists now, snug, firm, holding John’s arms above her head. 

Sherlock has still made no move towards John, but only watches her as she lies on the bed, tugging on her bound hands, settling her shoulders. John rejected the idea of a blindfold out of hand when Sherlock suggested it some days ago, feeling instinctively that that level of, of powerlessness would be beyond her, but now she wonders if she ought to have considered it. Lying there, stealing little glances at Sherlock, seeing her eyes travel across her bare body—this kind of exposure is difficult to bear. If she were blinded, she could pretend Sherlock was, what, looking out the window or something. 

_Denial, Watson?_ Isn’t the whole point of this to finally be honest? John forces herself into stillness, crossing her legs at the ankles and resting her forearms on the pillow above her head. She cannot look at Sherlock, but she can stop darting her eyes over to where she stands by the bed. She looks, instead, at the ceiling, and tries to let her mind go blank.

Sherlock finally speaks, and her voice is soft. “Are you all right, John?”

John thinks about it. “I guess. I feel rather...visible.”

Sherlock smiles then. “You are, yes. Finally.”

“Are you going to keep your clothes on?” 

“Would you like me to take them off?”

“Yes, please.”

Sherlock does, unbuttoning her blouse, unzipping her skirt, and laying her clothes neatly over the chair before unhooking her bra and stepping out of her knickers. She climbs onto the bed and settles on her left side, resting her right arm on the rise of her hip. Not touching.

“John.” 

John looks up and sees Sherlock sweep her eyes up and down her body. “Yes?”

“Are you sure?” They have talked about this for days, researched and read and negotiated. Sherlock knows what she will say. 

“Yes,” John tells her, willing it to be true. She closes her eyes and waits for the first touch, wondering where it will land.

It is not Sherlock’s hand that touches her, it is Sherlock’s cheek, coming in close to John’s face and brushing along her jaw, as her nose burrows into John’s long hair, and her mouth comes to rest by John’s ear. Sweet and intimate. 

She stays there for several breaths. _Five_. John counts them, as each one tickles her neck. Then her lips barely move but she whispers, “Thank you, John. However this turns out, thank you. This kind of trust is...difficult for you. You could have just asked me to leave it, and instead you’re offering...this.”

John feels her eyes fill and doesn’t dare open them. She smiles a little, though, and says, “We agreed...no more keeping secrets.”

Sherlock’s face is so close that John can feel her smile. “You’re giving it to me instead. Your most secret, um, secret. I’ll take care of it, John.” Sherlock’s body shifts a little, and she sighs. “I’ll take care of _you._ ”

“I know you will.” And John does know. So that when Sherlock’s hand reaches up and settles, finally, on the delicate skin of John’s upturned forearm, John feels the tension flowing out of her, and she releases a breath she didn’t realise she was holding. “I know you will, Sherlock. I trust you.”

***

It is...not exactly _easy_ , no really, but it is _simple._ Lie down and accept Sherlock’s touch, whatever touch she chooses to bestow. And since the objective is not to challenge John but to soothe her, the touches are soft. Gentle and smooth, only for pleasure. 

Sherlock runs a cool palm down John’s raised arm and down her side to her hip (avoiding a ticklish armpit). She trails her fingers over the soft mound of John’s belly, circling her navel lightly, and then passing the flat of her hand over the same skin, a delicate touch followed by a firm one. The same palm runs up between John’s breasts, staying well clear, then down again before wrapping around her ribcage.

She squeezes then, nuzzling her nose deep into the skin of John’s neck. “You’re so beautiful.”

John snorts. “Right.”

Sherlock draws back and glares at her. “John, I am a genius. I am never wrong. I know what beauty is, and you, my dear, are beautiful. Strong and round and golden and _beautiful._ ”

“Are you a poet now?” John goes for levity, but in fact she is quite affected. _Sherlock wants to touch me because she thinks I’m beautiful._ She hasn’t had that thought with this clarity before. With some effort, she says again, “Is that poetry?”

“It’s truth,” Sherlock says, and presses a kiss to John’s parted lips. 

After that, it is just _right_ , for Sherlock to lean over and gather John’s lips in under her own, and for John to let her mouth go soft, to allow Sherlock to lick and taste. It is right for Sherlock to draw her hand up and down John’s body, tracing little circles on neutral skin, belly and sides, and around the outsides of her breasts, brushing the sides where they swell softly, but nothing more, and it is right for John to twist a little into the touch, encouraging more frequent brushes, getting used to the feel of being touched, and then liking it, and then _craving_ it…

...until Sherlock has to be quick to keep her fingertips on neutral skin, as John sidles and wriggles and tries to get a little further under her hands, but Sherlock is always faster, stays away while John _seeks_ and _seeks_ and finally _whimpers,_ when she almost succeeds, _almost,_ so close, so close, “Sherlock, _please”_ and arches her back, reaching her taut nipples up, up, “ _Touch me_.”

Sherlock does, then, Sherlock touches her, Sherlock allows the delicate circling touch of her fingers to settle, so lightly, on the tip of John’s nipple, only the slightest touch, but John cries out and almost rises off the bed, and she thinks she could come, just from this, just from Sherlock’s fingertip resting there. She trembles and tries not to break the contact.

“Lovely,” Sherlock murmurs. “I never—this is so good, John. I love this. I love this.”

“Oh, god, me too, I love this, this is, this is,” but somehow Sherlock has managed to slide her other arm under John’s shoulders, to shift their bodies so that now she can get one hand on each of John’s flushed breasts, and closes her fingers, around both of John’s nipples, which she then slides between thumb and forefinger, back and forth, and John’s words are cut off in an incoherent cry.

And here is John, and John is suddenly out of all control, wailing and moaning under Sherlock’s hands, shifting her shoulders left and right, unashamedly seeking the touches she wants, and letting the sheer pleasure of it all wash over her and all through her, deep into her belly and out through her fingertips. 

She has never been this wanton with any lover, would always have turned the tables long since, but her hands are immobilized, she can’t, she _can’t_ , she can only receive, accept, _enjoy_. 

It is pure pleasure, and John has no choice but to feel it wholly.

When Sherlock releases one nipple and runs her hand down John’s belly, John’s hips are already thrusting into the air in anticipation of the next touch. _I must look obscene,_ she thinks, but hardly cares, because Sherlock is dipping two fingers into her fold and she knew she must be wet, of course, but she is not prepared for the practically frictionless slide of Sherlock’s fingers over the length of her clit…

...and she lets out a moan that is matched by Sherlock’s own, Sherlock’s voice, roughened and wrecked, “ _Oh,_ John, the _feel_ of you, I wish you could see, I wish you could _feel…”_

John can feel, it is all she can do, and she abandons herself to the sensations.

After a few long strokes over John’s slick folds, Sherlock presses her whole palm between John’s thighs, undulating her fingers, massaging, smearing John’s wetness all over her hand and between her fingers. With the heel of her hand, she grinds down on the apex of John’s vulva, a firm, diffuse pressure that makes John grind back, rocking side to side and moaning out her pleasure. 

John is beside herself now, no longer able to identify the individual sensations as Sherlock doles them out. The light, stroking touches give way to firmer ones, and John has long since uncrossed her legs, but at a hard press of hand or wrist—which?—she mindlessly closes them again, crossing her ankles and squeezing her thighs, and rutting hard, exerting herself, sweating and shouting, chasing her pleasure, while Sherlock sucks on her ear and utters words which go almost unheard, _beautiful_ and _yes_ and _oh, good girl, good girl_ and _thank you, thank you, John, thank you,_ and then fingers close again on her nipple and all the pleasure coalesces in her belly before flying apart in all directions, supernova.

***

Silence, after. Breath. Her own, and Sherlock’s, slowing, steadying. There is a small voice nagging her to stir, to speak, to reassure, not to stay silent too long, but she resists. She lets the quiet settle through her body. Her eyes can stay closed for now.

Her shoulders are a little cramped, though, now that she has come back to herself a little. She shifts, and Sherlock shifts with her, nudging little kisses onto the skin of her neck, into her hair. She helps John roll onto her back again, and lifts herself up on her elbow to gaze down at her. 

John smiles. Sherlock smiles back.

“That was—” But John has no words for what it was, so she just smiles again.

Sherlock’s smile hasn’t gone anywhere. “We don’t have to be finished, if you want to keep going…?”

“Oh, god.” It was wonderful, and John feels perfect, exactly as she is. Her eyes close, and she murmurs, “Another one like that might kill me.”

“You’re all right, though?” Sherlock isn’t really worried, John can tell.

“I am _perfect._ ”

There is a low chuckle. “Yes, you are.” She clambers ungracefully onto her knees to reach the knots.

A moment later John’s arms are free. She stretches, with a contented little sound. She would never allow anyone to call her _catlike_ , but that’s how she feels: boneless and soft, petted and spoiled. She laughs a little at herself, for feeling like this, for _loving_ it.

“Thanks, Sherlock.” She lifts her hand—tingling a little, as the blood flows in—and strokes Sherlock’s face. “Really. That was—I didn’t even know that was what I needed. Thank you.”

“John.” Sherlock gazes at John for a long moment. “That was...that was a gift, John. You gave me a gift, letting me see you like that, taking that, that risk. For me. Only for me.” She startles then, stammers out, “At least, I think only for...I didn’t mean, you can, I have no claim on—” But John stops her with a kiss.

“My idiot genius. Of course only for you. The idea of, of submitting to someone else like that? Of placing myself under someone else’s, in someone else’s hands? Someone else’s care? Do you think anyone else would have the first idea what to do with me?” She kisses her again. “Of course only you. I—I love you.” 

Sherlock blinks, and stares, and blinks, and stares. John has let her bind her wrists and has rutted herself to orgasm on her hand, on her arm, and this when she hardly ever lets anyone _touch_ her, and yet _this_ is the surprising part, to Sherlock.

“Sherlock? All right?” John bites her lip, searches Sherlock’s face. “We said, um. We said no more secrets.”

Sherlock shakes herself at that, takes a deep breath, lets it out. “We did, yes. Then here: I love you too.” She smiles then, dazzling, brilliant. “I love you, John. And I think now we really are through with keeping secrets.”


End file.
